The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth in the past several decades. Technological advances in semiconductor materials and design have produced increasingly smaller and more complex circuits. These material and design advances have been made possible as the technologies related to processing and manufacturing have also undergone technical advances. As a size of the smallest component has decreased, numerous challenges have risen. For example, the need to perform higher resolution lithography patterning processes grows.
Techniques such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography have been utilized to support high resolution requirements of nano-scale semiconductor devices. EUV lithography uses radiation in the EUV region, such as 13.5 nanometer (nm). Typically, EUV lithography is performed in a vacuum. The vacuum environment can produce related difficulties. For example, resist material used in EUV lithography is known to outgas during exposure, which may contaminate EUV optics, such as projection mirrors, in the same environment. Improvements are desired in this area.